As a child, before the onset of online streaming and multiple TV channels, there wasn’t much for us to watch, so it was outside, mud and running around that provided the entertainment.

Nowadays, Dora the Explorer, or heaven forbid, Peppa Pig, is there to stem the flow of tears.

At the same time, the amount of screen time that you allow your kid makes a big difference.

A new study into the effect of television, tablets, and smartphones on those critical years of rapid brain development, between the ages of three and five, shows that letting the TV babysit could be doing more harm than good.

According to CNN, the study found that those who used screens more than the recommended one hour a day without parental involvement had lower levels of development in the brain’s white matter.

That’s the part of the brain that controls language, literacy, and cognitive skills.

“This is the first study to document associations between higher screen use and lower measures of brain structure and skills in preschool-aged kids,” said lead author Dr. John Hutton, a paediatrician and clinical researcher at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The study was published Monday in the journal JAMA Paediatrics.

Higher screen use was associated with less well-developed white matter tracts (shown in blue)

“This is important because the brain is developing the most rapidly in the first five years,” Hutton said. “That’s when brains are very plastic and soaking up everything, forming these strong connections that last for life.”

The long term effects of an underdeveloped white brain matter include the inability of children to pay attention and think clearly, poor eating habits, and behavioural problems.

It’s the gray matter which contains the majority of the brain cells telling the body what to do. White matter is made up of fibres, typically distributed into bundles called tracts, which form connections between brain cells and the rest of the nervous system.

The three major tracts involved with language and literacy skills

“Think of white matter as cables, sort of like the telephone lines that are connecting the various parts of the brain so they can talk to each other,” Hutton said.

When those “cables” don’t develop properly, they slow down the brain’s processing speed.

The study found, overall, that children who engaged in more than the one hour of recommended screen time a day had developmental problems. There’s more:

“It’s not that the screen time damaged the white matter,” he said, adding that what could be occurring is that screen time is too passive for brain development.

“Perhaps screen time got in the way of other experiences that could have helped the children reinforce these brain networks more strongly,” he said.

In other words, now is the perfect time to tell your kids to go and play in the garden.

When they ask why, tell them it’s because science says so.

[source:cnn]